We have replaced WashU’s aging, homegrown Student Assistance Record system, or STAR, with new solutions that support our ability to attract talented students through the use of strategic financial aid.
STAR, which manages a variety of functions for the university’s Student Financial Services office (SFS), grew fragile and increasingly difficult to update to meet evolving federal regulations. The system’s complexity also limited SFS’s ability to track students’ progress and support their success at the university.
As part of the STAR replacement, we have implemented PowerFAIDS to manage financial aid administration for Danforth undergraduate and graduate students. PowerFAIDS manages all aspects of the financial aid process, including applications, disbursements, award distribution and federal work study.
The Medical School currently uses a separate instance of PowerFAIDS. This project did not affect or integrate with the Medical School’s PowerFAIDS’s system.
Jump To: Goals | Impacted Systems | Timeline | Leadership
Connection to Workday Student
We are not turning on Workday Student’s full financial aid functionality as Workday does not support WashU’s methodology for administering financial aid.
PowerFAIDS will integrate with Workday Student to ensure processes related to student financials and other areas run smoothly within Workday.
Project goals
Over the long-term, the implementation of PowerFAIDS on the Danforth Campus will:
- Improve our ability to identify and track academic and non-academic issues impacting a student’s academic performance and ultimate success at WashU
- Improve communication among students, parents, advisors and faculty related to student progress
- Make it easier to comply with federal and state regulations related to financial aid
- Reduce manual work to administer financial aid and manage its supporting systems
- Make it easier to assess impacts of financial aid policies and programs
- Support our efforts to be more strategic and intentional in how we recruit and serve students
Impacted systems
PowerFAIDS replaced some, but not all, of STAR’s functionality. See below for details on the impact of STAR’s retirement on university systems.
STAR was decommissioned in the first quarter of 2022 after processing for the academic year 2020-21 was complete.
PEP is a homegrown application housed within STAR. The PEP application was rewritten and implemented in the first quarter of 2022.
KL/SP Imaging Solution will be archived for reference, and a different imaging solution integrated into the new system will be used going forward.
The MyFAAccess student portal was in place until PowerFAIDS/Net Partner was operational. We are developing a plan for archiving MyFAAccess data.
The SFS website has been updated to route students to the appropriate new systems and sites.
Slate integrated with PowerFAIDS to share applicant data. Applicants will view financial aid information in the Slate portal.
WebFOCUS was retired. PowerFAIDS should meet SFS’s operational and audit reporting needs. The PowerFAIDS project team and SFS are working on a reporting gap analysis to identify reports that can’t be met through PowerFAIDS and potential solutions.
STAR no longer feeds data to Cognos after summer 2021.
Users log in to PowerFAIDS using WashU’s single sign on (SSO) solution, i.e. WUSTL Key login.
Federal Work Study award data has been sent to Workday to ensure that the student is eligible for work study and can be paid through Workday payroll. The Federal Work Study Eligibility and Award integration went live with the Workday HCM/FIN go-live. The Federal Work Study Earnings data integration from Workday HCM/FIN to PowerFAIDS went live in fall 2021.
Timeline
Phase 1 launched the PowerFAIDS system for initial processing of incoming students for academic year 2021-22.
Phase 2 included:
- Migrating current students (past four years of history from STAR) to PowerFAIDS
- Awarding returning undergraduates in PowerFAIDS and awarding graduate students in PowerFAIDS
- Establishing integrations and setting up PowerFAIDS configurations:
- Between PowerFAIDS and Student Accounting for disbursement and reconciliation data, which was live in May 2021
- Between PowerFAIDS and Student Accounting for anticipated aid data, which was live in June 2021
- Between PowerFAIDS and Workday HCM/Finance for federal work study eligibility and award data, which was live in July 2021
- Between PowerFAIDS and Workday HCM/Finance for federal work study earnings, which was live in fall 2021
- STAR decommissioning planning
- SFS reporting gap analysis
- Completing system selection for the Donated Funds/Scholarship Matching process that currently runs through STAR
Project leadership
A Steering Committee consisting of representatives from key stakeholder groups provided oversight to the PowerFAIDS implementation and STAR retirement project. This group advised on system design, training, decisions and impacts and served as champions for the project within their units.
Mike Runiewicz, assistant vice provost and director of Student Financial Services
Project Sponsor
Mike Runiewicz, assistant vice provost and director of Student Financial Services
Enterprise Applications Student Representative
Raji Lakshmanan, director for Enterprise Applications
Enterprise Applications Technical Representative
Josh Edwards, director for Enterprise Applications
Graduate Program Representative
Carrie Burns, director of Financial Aid and Student Life
Student Accounting Representative
Lois Lebert, director of accounting operations
Treasury Representative
Kelli Lively, manager of student and parent loan programs
Undergraduate Admissions Representative
Kim Selle, senior director for administration, admissions and aid
Workday Student Representative
Beth Lee, Workday Student project director
Workday Student Financial Representative
Jeff Herman, Workday Student financial aid functional lead
Project Manager
Jane Sterling, IT project manager
Functional Lead (Phase 1)
Valerie Jensen, deputy director for Student Financial Services
Functional Lead (Phase 2)
Dena Johnson, system and integration specialist